


Weight

by vaulkner



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Gen, ship is there if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaulkner/pseuds/vaulkner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Except even as she's dying, her gaze is unrelenting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weight

_Inhale–_

  
  
When the knife slices through her skin, his breath comes in sharp, acidic, _terrified._  She's looking at him directly, brown eyes boring straight into him. Their conversation isn't in what's said ( _"Don't do it" she says, he can only comply because he'd trusted her long ago to keep him on the right path_ ); it's in the silence that crackles between them as his dark eyes watch her blood flow. He's seen death and dying before, has been the cause of it in many ways, but this is different. This is personal and impersonal all at once. Roy has a hard time processing that he's watching Riza bleed out from a serious wound, that all the red (so red) staining the floor is coming from her. It dyes the tips of her hair, undone for once. Her shirt's blossoming with the color now too, darkening, darkening.  
  
The man with the gold tooth prompts him again, trying to get him to respond with an affirmative. That all he'd have to do to save the girl– the woman, the solider, the lieutenant ( _his lieutenant_ )– is to perform human transmutation. Every part of him wants to concede, his alchemist mind already piecing it together ( _the human body is made up of…_ )  
  
Except even as she's dying, her gaze is unrelenting. She'll never forgive him. He wouldn't forgive himself, not after he knows the consequences. Not when there are two people close to him that have paid too high of a price in exchange for their attempt.  
  
To try it would mean giving in, straying from the path, and ignoring a dying request.   
  
He feels himself getting tunnel vision as the stress reaches a pin point, except he catches that little flicker of her eyes. She glances away just briefly, and the harrowing blinders lift as he looks up, sees possible salvation pressed against the section of ceiling above her.   
  
His answer to the man with the gold tooth is strong ( _"I won't perform human transmutation."_ ) and he's almost shocked by the lack of waver in his voice. He's reaffirmed and things happen in a flurry as help drops down from the ceiling as promised. Chaos overtakes the scene and soon he has Riza cradled in his arms, worry etched through his whole being. She'd almost been lost, his guide, his steadying hands. The woman with the gun pointed at his head, even when she's unarmed. Riza is weak, breathing shallow; she's lost a lot of blood. But she's here, and that's what matters. He almost wants to laugh, nerves feeling frayed like the ends of old rope.   
  
Except his relief (their relief) is short lived.   
  
Because soon Wrath shows up, Pride in tow. Roy has the wind knocked out of him and he's suddenly on the ground, back pressed against the tiles. State alchemist reflexes have him reaching to snap up and out, but searing pain is shoved through both of his palms as Bradley– no, Wrath, homunculus, monster– stabs his swords into his hands, cutting the alchemy circles on his gloves. He's trapped and the fear of what's to come rises like bile in his throat.  
  
And then it's white. Just white, with a door. The doors open and he feels like he's being pulled apart and then remade, life flying by in a filmstrip that he shouldn't even be seeing (his eyes automatically look for a head of blonde hair, an inscribed tattoo written on her back). A strange figure converses with him, unsympathetic.   
  
When he gets back to the real world, the living realm and not the one of endless white and possibilities, everything is a contrast. It's black here, pitch darkness overtaking everything. Edward Elric is somewhere nearby, voice unmistakable. He still can't see anything.   
  
Roy realizes, horrible dread washing over him, that he'll never see anything. His eyes are gone, in a way. The sight he's had pinned on the future can no longer lead him forward, and he's separated from the only other person that would be his second sight. He bows his head, face in his hands, and lets the weight on his shoulders push him down.

  
  
_–Exhale._


End file.
